Duke Energy Uses AI to Combat Customer Scams

- Duke Energy is a founding member of Utilities United Against Scams (UUAS), a consortium of over 150 electric, water, and natural gas companies in the U.S. and Canada that work with law enforcement and telecommunications partners to combat utility scams. - As of the end of October 2025, Duke Energy had already received more than 5,600 scam reports across its service areas for the year. This is part of a larger trend that saw over 77,000 scam attempts reported by Duke Energy customers in the first 10 months of 2023. - The AI system proactively identifies fraudulent activities by scanning for impersonations of Duke Energy in digital ads and fake customer service numbers in search results, then works with the hosting platforms to have them removed. This is a technical approach to a problem that, in one case, saw a customer lose $3,400 to a scammer after a threatening voicemail about service disconnection. - Scammers are increasingly using AI to create "deepfakes" and highly convincing emails, but common red flags include demands for immediate payment via prepaid debit cards, cryptocurrency, or third-party payment apps like Zelle or Venmo, which Duke Energy does not accept. - This anti-scam initiative is part of a broader strategy of AI adoption at Duke Energy, which includes collaborations with partners like Accenture, Microsoft, and AWS for other advanced applications such as an AI-powered self-healing grid and a methane emissions monitoring platform. - Imposter scams, the category that includes utility impersonation, are the most frequently reported type of fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission. - The AI likely uses a combination of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze text for threatening language common in scams and computer vision to detect unauthorized use of Duke Energy's logo and branding on websites and social media.